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Speaker 1: Late in the morning on February sixth, nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: George Bryant and Oscar Bridges were at Bryan's Kansas City home.

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Speaker 1: According to four year old Kayla Bryant, her father invited

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Speaker 1: in three men dressed in black, whom she had seen

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Speaker 1: at the house two days earlier. It's believed that they

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Speaker 1: were there for a drug deal. While the men were

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Speaker 1: in the kitchen, Kayla hurt a gunshot, her father fell,

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Speaker 1: and Oscar Bridges ran into the basement, where he was

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Speaker 1: later discovered bound, gagged, and shot twice in the head.

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Speaker 1: While the men searched the house, George tried to run,

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Speaker 1: was shot and bled out in the snow. The three

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Speaker 1: men sped off in a white Oldsmobile. Police received anonymous

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Speaker 1: tips naming ten men as suspects, including men who knew

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Speaker 1: George Bryant, Gary Goodspeed Senior and Junior, Marcus Merrill, and

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Speaker 1: Ricky Kidd, with an alibi that included a trip to

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Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office and not being identified by Kayla. Ricky

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Speaker 1: was released after recording a video lineup. Weeks later, allience

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Speaker 1: neighbor Richard Harris was arrested while on parole in exchange

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Speaker 1: for leniency, he offered a description of the crime that

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Speaker 1: was inconsistent with all other witnesses, along with an ever

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Speaker 1: growing confidence in his identification of Ricky Kidd. Despite evidence

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Speaker 1: that mostly pointed toward Merrill and both Good Speeds, authorities

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Speaker 1: decided to prosecute Ricky on the strength of an incentivized

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Speaker 1: informant and against the protest of the four year old witness,

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Speaker 1: sending Ricky away for life without parole. This is wrongful conviction.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. Today. You are going to

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Speaker 1: hear from a guy who I'm really actually in awe of.

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Speaker 1: I've heard him on the radio, on podcasts, I've heard

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Speaker 1: him on different platforms. I've read about him. He's somebody

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Speaker 1: that everyone in the innocence movement respects and admires. He

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Speaker 1: carries himself in a way that I think is just inspiring.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how else to say it. And I'm

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Speaker 1: going to introduce the man right now, and so Ricky Kid,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Rafel Conviction.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason, appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here. Of course, I'm sorry you're

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Speaker 1: here because the reason you're here is the miserable nightmare

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Speaker 1: you had to live through. But before we get into

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Speaker 1: all of that, Ricky, let's go back like they do

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Speaker 1: in the movies when it gets all foggy and it

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Speaker 1: was time traveled back. What was your life like growing up?

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Speaker 1: What do you call it? A happy childhood?

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, like many of the individuals who find themselves on

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Speaker 2: the wrong side of the law, wrongfully convicted, there was

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Speaker 2: some poverty issues. I grew up smart. I was always

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Speaker 2: two grades above and reading and math. I was innocent

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Speaker 2: of the woes of the world, the eels, the injustices

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Speaker 2: of the world at that time, and I was a

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Speaker 2: mama's boy. My name is Ricky, my mother's name is Vicky,

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Speaker 2: and my sister name is Nicki, so it was Nicky,

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Speaker 2: Ricky and Vicki. My father never showed up, Jason. He

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Speaker 2: for one reason or another, he decided not to participate

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Speaker 2: in my life. And then in nineteen eighty eight nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty nine, my mother fell into crack cocaine addiction, and

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Speaker 2: my sister, who had different fathers, so she went and

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Speaker 2: stayed with her father's family, and my mother went into

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Speaker 2: her addiction in the streets, and I was left essentially homeless.

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Speaker 1: Well that's actually quite the opposite of a happy childhood.

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Speaker 1: And it's my understanding of the situation you found yourself

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Speaker 1: and led you to come to know both the eventual

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Speaker 1: victims and the assailants in this case. In fact, you

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Speaker 1: knew the good Speed so well that people confused you

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Speaker 1: for family.

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Speaker 2: I grew up next door to Gary Goodspeed junior. We

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Speaker 2: became friends and did start calling each other's cousins. As

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Speaker 2: we got older. Then I would call his mother auntie.

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Speaker 2: I will call his daddy uncle. Essentially, when my mother

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Speaker 2: went a wall and went into her addiction, his family

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Speaker 2: actually took me in. I had an ultimatum from the

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Speaker 2: good Speech was you're gonna have to find a way

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Speaker 2: to pay your way. So at a young age, I

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Speaker 2: was introduced to selling crack cocaine, and the older guys

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Speaker 2: would give me one hundred dollars pack five twenty dollar rocks,

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Speaker 2: and if I sold all one hundred of them, I

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Speaker 2: could to keep twenty. The idea was, little Ricky, if

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Speaker 2: you get caught, see you a juvenile, you can't get

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Speaker 2: into any trouble. So it just made sense to me,

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Speaker 2: with the cards that my life had dealt me at

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Speaker 2: that time, to do so thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, I

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Speaker 2: was still this, you know, small time drug dealer. As

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Speaker 2: we became older and I began to find my own

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Speaker 2: way in this world, our passways began to go in

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Speaker 2: different directions. When it came to February sixth, nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 2: the good speech would not have been considered friends. They

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Speaker 2: would not really have even been considered associates.

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Speaker 1: And earlier on, your connection to drugs put you in

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Speaker 1: touch with the victim in this case, George Bryant, who

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Speaker 1: was also involved in that same lifestyle. And while your

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Speaker 1: path diverged from the good speeds, you had three children, Jasmine,

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Speaker 1: Raven and Austin. Now you were supplementing your income still

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Speaker 1: selling drugs, and eventually that put you on the radar

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Speaker 1: of the local police.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I would have been known to the police. So

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Speaker 2: the idea that you can be a street guy, the hustler,

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Speaker 2: it was good enough for them to say, you might

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Speaker 2: as well be a murder. It's all the same to them.

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Speaker 2: That's what you do, right, you sell drugs, you kill

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Speaker 2: each other, you Robin, But that just wasn't the case.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't violent at all. I had a drug conviction.

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Speaker 2: I was arrested in October of nineteen ninety five. Drugs

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Speaker 2: was found in a rental car, and so I popped

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Speaker 2: on the radar there just months before the commission of

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Speaker 2: the homicide in February of nineteen ninety six.

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Speaker 1: Just in time, of course, for your mugshot to be

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Speaker 1: available for a photo lineup. So let's talk about the

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Speaker 1: crime itself. So, like you said, it's February sixth, nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety six. This happened just before noon, and from the

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Speaker 1: account of George's daughter Kayla, who was watching TV and

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Speaker 1: having a happy meal. Ironically, it looks like George had

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Speaker 1: invited three men into the house. We believe to make

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Speaker 1: some sort of a drug deal. Kayla had seen the

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Speaker 1: men though two days before, when they had come by

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Speaker 1: the house. She described one as fat and another skinny. Now,

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Speaker 1: on the day of the crime, the men had come

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Speaker 1: through the garage. They were dressed in black, and now

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Speaker 1: they were all in the kitchen with George and a

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Speaker 1: guy named Oscar Bridges. Kayla heard a gun go off

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Speaker 1: and her father fell to the ground. Then Oscar ran

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Speaker 1: down to the basement. One of the men followed Oscar,

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Speaker 1: whose body was later discovered bound, gagged and shot twice

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Speaker 1: in the head. The other two men searched George's pockets,

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Speaker 1: and while they searched the rest of the house, George

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Speaker 1: tried to run but was shot. He tragically bled out,

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Speaker 1: laying in the snow outside like a horror scene. Kayla

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Speaker 1: said the quote. Fat one came back in and told

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Speaker 1: her it was going to be all right. Then the

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Speaker 1: three men got into a white sedan and peeled off.

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Speaker 1: Police arrived at eleven fifty am and found Kayla still

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Speaker 1: on the phone with the nine one one dispatcher. Police

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Speaker 1: received various anonymous tips naming ten different suspects, including Marcus

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Speaker 1: Merrill and then also Darry Goodspeed Senior and Junior, and

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Speaker 1: then of course you, Ricky. So investigators put together a

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Speaker 1: photo lineup for Kayla that included you, Meryll and good

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Speaker 1: Speed Junior. And get this, Kayla only picked out Meryl. Now,

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Speaker 1: like you said, you were no longer associated with these guys,

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Speaker 1: but you were still listed with the police as known associates.

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Speaker 2: And so when the double homicide had taken place, unbenoath

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Speaker 2: to my lawyers and I at the time that the

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Speaker 2: real killers good Speed Senor Junior and Merrow had not

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Speaker 2: only committed the crime and fled, but to buy them

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Speaker 2: some time in some space. They called Chips hotline and

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Speaker 2: said that Ricky Kidd had something to do with this homicide.

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Speaker 2: And so that's how I ended up popping up on

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Speaker 2: their radar in the first place. They picked me up

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Speaker 2: on February fourteenth, nineteen ninety six, interrogated me for about

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Speaker 2: five or six hours. I participated in a photo lineup,

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Speaker 2: a video lineup, and.

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Speaker 1: They arrested Monica, your girlfriend at that time, as well.

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Speaker 1: They separated you and interrogated you both, and your stories

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Speaker 1: matched perfectly correct and the stories are pretty compelling. They

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Speaker 1: could have easily verified these stories right, Which was that

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Speaker 1: on the morning of the crime, you had agreed to

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Speaker 1: watch your nephew, right well, your sister was at work.

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Speaker 1: And then that same morning that this crime took place,

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Speaker 1: you and Monica and the little guy DJ had gone

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Speaker 1: to Nikki's office to pick up your car and then

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Speaker 1: stopped at McDonald's and went to the Jackson County Sheriff's office.

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Speaker 2: Imagine that, I mean, how.

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Speaker 1: Good of an alibi do you need? And this is

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Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office at Late Jakomo where you applied for

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Speaker 1: a gun permit, so I mean it. That's it, right.

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Speaker 1: No more investigation is necessary than to just do those

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Speaker 1: very basic things and go check the videotape at McDonald's.

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Speaker 1: Go check and see if in fact you were at

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Speaker 1: the sheriff's office. They would have a record of that. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: if you applied for a gun permit. Now you agreed

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Speaker 1: to stand at a videotape lineup, allowed police to search

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Speaker 1: the car and belongings. And I got to go back

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Speaker 1: to the fact that you and your and Monica, your

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Speaker 1: story's matched exactly. Now, if you were lying since you

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Speaker 1: were separated, there's no chance that those stories would.

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Speaker 2: Have matched none at all.

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Speaker 1: It seems like initially when they first arrested you, they

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Speaker 1: basically acknowledged that you weren't the.

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Speaker 2: Guy and they had let me go. They said it

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Speaker 2: at the time, it appeared that somebody was throwing my

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Speaker 2: name in a hat, trying to shuffle things around, and

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Speaker 2: they released me February fifteenth. In my mind, there was

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Speaker 2: no frame of reference at that time, in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 2: six for me to even understand that I was in trouble. Ay,

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Speaker 2: I'm in it. You can clearly go verify that I'm

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Speaker 2: in a set and might whereabouts at the time of

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Speaker 2: the crime. And they did not pursue that.

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Speaker 1: Now they go and they decided they're going to test

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Speaker 1: six pairs of your shoes, and they compared them to

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Speaker 1: shoeprints that were found in the kitchen. There was one

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Speaker 1: shoeprint that was found on a piece of bread, and

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Speaker 1: the other one was in blood on linoleum. And your

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Speaker 1: shoes as well as the shoes of the victims were

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Speaker 1: excluded as the source of the prince. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to be Sherlock Holmes here, ladies and gentlemen, right. So

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Speaker 1: they also, at the same time, though, began to investigate Meryl,

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Speaker 1: Goodspeed Junior, and Good Speed Senior. All of them, interestingly enough,

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Speaker 1: lived in Georgia, where Meryll and Good Speed Junior shared

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Speaker 1: an apartment. Now get this. Airline records showed that the

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Speaker 1: three men had flown from Atlanta to Kansas City a

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Speaker 1: few days prior to the murders and stated that Adams

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Speaker 1: Marcotel before returning to Georgia after the murders Alamo rent

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Speaker 1: the car records showed the Good Speed Senior rented a

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Speaker 1: You guess that a white Oldsmobile which fit the description,

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Speaker 1: the real descriptions of the getaway car and good speed.

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Speaker 1: Senior's fingerprint was found on a Carmex lip bomb wrapper

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Speaker 1: with a price tag from a good to ghost store,

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Speaker 1: one of which was a block and a half from

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Speaker 1: Brian's home. Again, these are clues that are starting to

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Speaker 1: really add up. I mean, that would be a crazy

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Speaker 1: set of coincidences could happen. But okay, So then on

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Speaker 1: March eleventh, nineteen ninety six, Richard Harris, who lived near

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Speaker 1: mister Bryant, was arrested on a parole violation. I want

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Speaker 1: to take us through this part, Ricky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this individual you're talking about, Richard Harris, was an

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Speaker 2: alleged witness to the commission of the crime and he

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Speaker 2: had a parole violation. He was brought in and detectives

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Speaker 2: had already received a call that he might have some

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Speaker 2: information as it related to the double homicide. And so

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Speaker 2: when he go into the police station for his parole violation,

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Speaker 2: homicide brings him down. They began to enter it him

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Speaker 2: and that's where they received their first cooperating or what

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Speaker 2: I like to call cohersed witness. And so the opportunity

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Speaker 2: was ripe for him to receive some type of favor

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Speaker 2: in exchange for information, even if it was inaccurate information,

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Speaker 2: to get himself back out of the trouble that he

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Speaker 2: found himself in. And so what detectives done to help

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Speaker 2: facilitate that was they showed Richard Harris a single photo

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Speaker 2: of me first, and Richard Harris said, I cannot say

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Speaker 2: that was him. Then they showed him a five man

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Speaker 2: photo spread and lo and behold, who's the fifth man?

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Speaker 2: And the five man photo spread the same guy he

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Speaker 2: just saw on a single photo. So then he said,

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Speaker 2: I think I think that's the guy. They said, but

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Speaker 2: you can't be sure. He said, no, I can't be sure.

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Speaker 2: So they said, okay, let's go into this other room

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Speaker 2: where they show him the video lineup. All the faces

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Speaker 2: changed except up for Ricky Kidd. So at this stage

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Speaker 2: he went from the single polar warid, I'm not sure,

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Speaker 2: the five man photo spread it maybe number five, to

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Speaker 2: the video lineup. He became two thousand and one percent

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Speaker 2: sure that Ricky Kidd was the guy that he saw,

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Speaker 2: despite describing everything contrary to what the police began to

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Speaker 2: collect or report on the evidence. For example, all witnesses

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Speaker 2: said that there was three men. They hopped in a

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Speaker 2: white late model OS mobile. They backed down the street.

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Speaker 2: That they all had on ski masks and black trench coats.

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Speaker 2: Richard Harris described one of them without a coat on

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Speaker 2: at all, one with a brown coat, and that they

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Speaker 2: didn't back up, they actually went forward. And they was

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Speaker 2: not in a late model osmobile. They was in a

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Speaker 2: Nissan Stanza. And so early on, he's getting key facts wrong.

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Speaker 1: This guy obviously didn't see it. But nonetheless, on May

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Speaker 1: twenty second, nineteen ninety six, a few months after this

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Speaker 1: awful crime, were arrested again.

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Speaker 2: They came and they pulled their guns as I was

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Speaker 2: driving away from my apartment, made me stop the car.

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Speaker 2: I was surrounded by squad and police and detectives. My girlfriend,

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Speaker 2: Monica Gray at the time, she was with me, made

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Speaker 2: us put our hands up and they slapped those cold

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Speaker 2: handcuffs on us and took us down to the police station.

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Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, in my mind, what didn't they understand

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Speaker 2: the first time? It's gonna be yet another inconvenience because

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Speaker 2: I'm moving, you're gonna make I'm just gonna be late.

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna be late. I'm not gonna go to prison.

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Speaker 2: Innocent people don't go to prison. I'm just about to

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Speaker 2: be hastled, let go, and they once again realized that

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Speaker 2: they have the wrong person. I had no previous experience

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Speaker 2: with our justice system.

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Speaker 1: You told Detective Jay Pruding that you were with Monica

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Speaker 1: all day and that whoever identified you must have confused

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Speaker 1: you with somebody else, quite possibly your uncle, Gary Goodspeed Senior.

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Speaker 1: But nonetheless you and Merrill were charged with the murders.

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Speaker 1: Take us to what happens over the next month. When

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Speaker 1: you reached out to this detective, right.

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Speaker 2: I was letting them know through the whole time that

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Speaker 2: I was in the county jail. I had no bond,

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Speaker 2: that I was innocent. First, I did not know why

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Speaker 2: they would think I would be guilty, so I had

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Speaker 2: to wait for my discovery. Once I was able to

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Speaker 2: receive the police reports, about six hundred pages, maybe one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty of them was keeping everything that they

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Speaker 2: collected together. Maybe about fifty or sixty pages was related

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Speaker 2: to me, but the rest of the six hundred pages

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Speaker 2: were all related to the good Speed and those clues

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Speaker 2: and the dots that connected them to being involved in

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Speaker 2: the commission of this crime, and so as I received

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Speaker 2: my discovery in the county jail, I was smart enough

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Speaker 2: as a novus, as a regular citizen, to see that

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Speaker 2: you are barking up the wrong tree, and how can

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Speaker 2: you possibly not see this, as seasoned detectives unless you

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Speaker 2: are purposely trying to send the wrong person to prison.

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Speaker 2: So I would reach out, my sister would reach out.

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Speaker 2: I would get on the phone. My lawyers would tell me,

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Speaker 2: might I advise you don't talk to the detectives? And

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Speaker 2: I heard her. I was smart enough to understand the

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Speaker 2: basis of that. But in my mind, I'm thinking an

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Speaker 2: innocent man could never get itself in any trouble. He's innocent.

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Speaker 2: So I would not listen, and I would call the

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Speaker 2: detectives and I would wrestle with them over the phone

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Speaker 2: till they one day came and picked me up and

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Speaker 2: brought me over to headquarters, and I had about twenty

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Speaker 2: five thirty minutes to articulate their case back to them.

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Speaker 2: And man, you are to seen they I wish that

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Speaker 2: was recorded. You are have seen their faces. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I was a young Perry Mason, if you will, and

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Speaker 2: I'm kind of being funny but serious, I was really

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Speaker 2: laying out like this is how you're making a mistake,

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Speaker 2: and answer why this and why that. Gary Goodspeed Junior

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Speaker 2: was picked up by the detectives and asked what time

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Speaker 2: did George Bryant die? And Gary Goodspeed Junior says, in

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Speaker 2: this police report he died at eleven forty seven or

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Speaker 2: eleven forty six. Who else would know that other than

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Speaker 2: the killer? It was never reported in papers, It was

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Speaker 2: never reported in the news, It was never reported anywhere else.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the detective asked them, how do you know that,

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Speaker 2: good Speed Junior, he said, my dad told me so.

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Speaker 2: He would have been better off saying I read it

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Speaker 2: in the newspaper, and we could try to find that

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Speaker 2: newspaper that did not exist. But the news at that

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Speaker 2: time had not reported the time of death, so how

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Speaker 2: would you know? So it was these things. It was

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Speaker 2: these glaring facts that I was challenging the detectives with,

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Speaker 2: and they got so frustrated. You know, usually they put

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Speaker 2: us in a pigeon box to speak when they get

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Speaker 2: us in there. But I had them in the pigeon

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Speaker 2: box so much so that they called it off. One

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Speaker 2: of the leadings Sargeant said, get him out of here.

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Speaker 2: And don't bring you back over here again.

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Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.

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Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making

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Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and

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Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light

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Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and

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Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,

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Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and

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Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.

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Speaker 2: The prosecutor, Amy McGowan, wanted to talk to Gary Goodspeed

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Speaker 2: Senior and wanted to talk to Gary Goodspeed Junior. I

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Speaker 2: was making too much of a fuss that I was

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Speaker 2: innocent and that they were guilty according to the evidence

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Speaker 2: that they have in their possession. And so the prosecutor's

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Speaker 2: office worked to get Gary Goodspeed Senior and Gary Goodspeed

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Speaker 2: Junior too participate in sworn depositions. And by the way,

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Speaker 2: Gary Goodspeed Senior and Gary Goodspeed Junior was Marcus Murrell's

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Speaker 2: alibi witness. Marcus Merrill and I were charged. Marcus Merrill

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Speaker 2: is saying I was not with Ricky Kidd. I was

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Speaker 2: with Gary Goodspeed Senior, and I was with Gary Goodspeed Junior.

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Speaker 2: And Gary Goodspeed Senior and Junior is saying, yeah what

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Speaker 2: Marcus Merrill said, We was with him and we were

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Speaker 2: not with Ricky Kidd. And so they reported to Amy

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Speaker 2: McGowan's office for a sworn deposition. Marcus Merrell Lawyers was there.

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Speaker 2: Detectives were summons to be there to read them their

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Speaker 2: Miranda rights. Why would you be reading these law abiding

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Speaker 2: citizens of them Miranda rights if you did not have

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Speaker 2: an indication that these were your guilty men? And so

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Speaker 2: everybody was there except for Ricky kidds representation Teresa Andison. Now,

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Speaker 2: by law, since this was a joint trial, all parties

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Speaker 2: must be summons together. You cannot take a deposition outside

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Speaker 2: of the presence of the other parties of individuals that

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Speaker 2: was involved. We was unaware that good Speech Senior and

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Speaker 2: Junior were being deposed of in Amy the Prosecutor's office.

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Speaker 2: During the deposition, they swore under oath that they was

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Speaker 2: not with Ricky Kidd, further proof that I was innocent,

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Speaker 2: and that they were indeed with Marcus Merrill and with

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Speaker 2: each other, And they further went to collaborate evidence that

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Speaker 2: suggested they did it. So police already had this five

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Speaker 2: hundred page of police reports that some of the spots

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Speaker 2: and dots were already there. And what these two individuals

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Speaker 2: did in a sworn deposition in the prosecutor's office is

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Speaker 2: basically connect themselves to those spots and dots. What happened

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Speaker 2: was Amy McGowan. She would have had to realize that she, indeed,

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Speaker 2: at this point emphatically is holding the wrong person in

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Speaker 2: the Jackson County jail across the street, and the real

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Speaker 2: killers is sitting in her office. What did she decide

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Speaker 2: to do? She'd said, escort these individuals out of here

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Speaker 2: and let them go and proceed it knowing that she

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Speaker 2: was sending the wrong person to prison. And just one

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Speaker 2: more little caveat to add to that, not only did

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Speaker 2: she not invite my legal team to the depositions, but

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Speaker 2: she also hid the fact that it even existed in

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Speaker 2: the first place. Those transcripts of those depositions were printed,

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Speaker 2: were created, and they was buried, buried as if it

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Speaker 2: never exists. It was only years later that Professor Sean

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Speaker 2: O'Brien in the Midwest Centistnce Project was able to find

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Speaker 2: those hitting and buried depositions, and we was able to

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Speaker 2: present them to a court and prove emphatically to the

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Speaker 2: court that Amy McGowan with hell key evidence and she

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Speaker 2: did it maliciously.

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Speaker 1: What the fuck is wrong with you people? You're absolute right.

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Speaker 1: They should have put the cuffs on them right there.

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Speaker 1: They should have assigned somebody to go across the street

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Speaker 1: and say we're sorry, mister kidd. This was a big misunderstanding.

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Speaker 1: We wish you well. At a minimum, that's what they

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Speaker 1: should have done. Yeah, but they were like, Nah, let

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Speaker 1: these guys go and hope they don't go and murder

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Speaker 1: anybody else.

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Speaker 2: Imagine that.

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Speaker 1: That's a level of evil that I think is hard

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Speaker 1: for most people with any sort of a conscience to understand.

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Speaker 1: But it's real because you're here to tell this story,

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Speaker 1: which is a miracle in itself. You know.

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Speaker 2: The National Registry of Exoneration have noted in their report

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Speaker 2: that fifty four percent of wrongful convictions has a direct

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Speaker 2: correlation with police and prosecutorial misconduct. Fifty four percent.

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Speaker 1: I believe.

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Speaker 2: One of the last studies I read was that about

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Speaker 2: four percent ever have any inquiry period, no matter how

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Speaker 2: egregious it is. Amy McGowan's behavior that we're talking about

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Speaker 2: today was so egregious, so egregious that nobody has come

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Speaker 2: to her defense except for her lawyer. It is actually

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Speaker 2: before the Missouri Supreme Court is hardly ever gone this far.

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Speaker 2: This case is so serious, her behavior so serious that

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Speaker 2: the Missouri Supreme Court, which is a very conservative court

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Speaker 2: here in this region, said no, no, no, we're going

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Speaker 2: to take this case up and we're going to decide

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Speaker 2: what type of punishment she deserves for this Injustice Act

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Speaker 2: that she participated in.

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Speaker 1: I wish I had more confidence that they're going to

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Speaker 1: do the right thing. The right thing really would be

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Speaker 1: to put her where you were for twenty three.

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Speaker 2: Years, correct, correct?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not an eye for an eye person

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Speaker 1: by any stretchy imagination, but you don't have to be

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Speaker 1: to understand that in less and until there's real accountability,

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Speaker 1: not just losing your law license, and that almost never

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Speaker 1: happens either. There's only been five prosecutors in the history

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Speaker 1: of this vast wrongful conviction universe that goes back now

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years in America. There's only been five prosecutors disbarred,

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Speaker 1: and you know one was recent in on Huffington case

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Speaker 1: in Maryland, but only five this barred, and only two

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Speaker 1: have ever gone to jail. Only two the Duke Lacrosse

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Speaker 1: Mike Nifong, he went to jail for one day. And

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Speaker 1: in the Michael Morton case in Texas, a guy named

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Speaker 1: Anderson went to jail for three days after putting Michael

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00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 1: in prison for twenty four years and seven months for

433
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: a crime that it was proven he knew, he knew,

434
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: just like they knew in your case, he didn't commit it.

435
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 1: So here comes the trial Jackson County. So you went

436
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:34,919
Speaker 1: to trial with Merrill, Right, Mister Merrill and his attorneys

437
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: pointed the finger at you and said that you committed

438
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: the crime with the good speeds. And of course your

439
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 1: defense was that Meryll defense. Your defense was the truth,

440
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: which was that Meryll committed the crime with the good speeds.

441
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: But truth had no place in this proceeding or this courtroom.

442
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 1: And of course we know how this plays out, but

443
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: it still took another couple of twists and turns. I'm

444
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: talking about little Kayla, right, who's now maybe five years

445
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: old at this point. Right, This poor little child, a

446
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: baby who's been through an experience that she probably bless

447
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: her heart, has probably never will recover from it, certainly

448
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: had recovered from at this point. So she got on

449
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 1: the witness stand, tell us about this. It must have

450
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 1: been a surreal moment for you.

451
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: It was, and it was sad what happened. They showed

452
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 2: her a five man photo spread and said, can you

453
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 2: identify the individuals that you saw at your house that day?

454
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 2: And she pointed to number three, Marcus Merrell, and they said, okay, okay,

455
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,160
Speaker 2: good job. Now, now can you point to the other

456
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:41,120
Speaker 2: person you said you saw in the house that day

457
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 2: And she said, no, I only saw one. I told

458
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 2: you I only saw one. And so they would ask

459
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,919
Speaker 2: the judge, can we approach she's she's tired, she's hungry,

460
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 2: she's this, that and the other. So they tried to

461
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: go back over there and rehabilitate her or get her

462
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 2: to look around the court and see if you can

463
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 2: identify any of those individuals that you saw in your

464
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 2: home that day, and she could not. When they further

465
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 2: pressed her on the stand, she became even more frazzled

466
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 2: and frustrated, and she said, I forgot, I forgot the story.

467
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 2: I forgot the whole story. Now, given that a five

468
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 2: year old can miss speak as they're learning full of sentences,

469
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 2: but as adults, when people use that type of language,

470
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 2: story it's something that's made up, it's something that's told

471
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 2: to them, and so we don't just say that loosely.

472
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 2: There's other evidence that support that she was told a story.

473
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 2: Her mother admits that she was told things, that she

474
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 2: told her daughter things. And so the idea that it's

475
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,360
Speaker 2: coming out in trial that they are trying to get

476
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:52,719
Speaker 2: this little girl to send an innocent person in prison

477
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 2: based on what she was told, not based on what

478
00:26:56,080 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 2: she actually may know, at least in full their case,

479
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 2: rightfully so was weak and so they had to figure out,

480
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 2: yannor can we take a quick break, And they had

481
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 2: to figure out how do I shore up this case?

482
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 2: And so after they took a little ten minute break,

483
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 2: some wise guy on the prosecutor side said, Hey, let's

484
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 2: call the detectives who said that she said that to

485
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 2: them and have them to say that to the jury.

486
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 2: And that's what they did, Jason. They brought in the

487
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 2: homicide detectives. Violated a hearsay rule where I had to

488
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 2: write to confront my witness. But my witness had said

489
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 2: what she said, so, they said, let's bring the detectives in.

490
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 2: They came in, about two or three of them took

491
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 2: the stand and said, yeah, we know what she wasn't

492
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 2: able to do today. But they looked to the jury,

493
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 2: They looked to the court, They looked to the judge

494
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 2: and said, but that's what she told us. They said

495
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 2: that this is what happened at headquarters. She came in,

496
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 2: We got her calm, we got her chill, and then

497
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 2: we began to proceed with the identification. Prop says that

498
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 2: she couldn't identify him in the photo spread, but when

499
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 2: we showed her the video, she started shaking real bad.

500
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 2: She had to be consulted and controlled that. She began

501
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 2: to cry and say, that's him, that guy right there,

502
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: that's who killed my daddy, says the police. You have recordings,

503
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 2: you have in fact transcribed these recordings, and nothing nowhere

504
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 2: near on paper suggests that she identified me at all. Furthermore,

505
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: once police said that this is what she did and trial,

506
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: they testified to that what happened at police headquarters, They said, well,

507
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 2: then what did you do next? They said, well, we

508
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 2: took her in the video recording room and we video

509
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 2: recorded a statement from her. They played the video recorded statement.

510
00:28:55,600 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 2: Not a question asked about Ricky kit. It's hard to believe.

511
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 2: Not a question asked, not even a question looking don't

512
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 2: they didn't have to. Okay, maybe we didn't go into

513
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 2: the weeds of it. You didn't even you have an

514
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 2: opportunity to memorialize a sensitive interview of a four and

515
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 2: a half or five year old child. You say in

516
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 2: the other room, this is all that she said. But

517
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 2: when you get a chance to video record and memorialize it,

518
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: you don't do it. Why don't you do it? Because

519
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 2: it didn't happen. That's why they didn't do it. But

520
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: they took those police detectives' words as a credible.

521
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: So this little five year old, this brave, little fatherless child,

522
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: tried to do the right thing, even though she probably

523
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: desperately wanted to listen and had been influenced by these

524
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: people who are trying everything they could, and she must

525
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: have desperately wanted to help find and bring to justice

526
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: the person who killed her daddy, and the other man

527
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: in the house said day and even then, even under

528
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: all that pressure, she stood up. And their response is

529
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: to go conspire, to put lies upon lies and it

530
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like hearsay as well, right, because they're

531
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: coming in when going well no, but she said at a

532
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: different time, I mean, this is how that's admissible. I

533
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: you know, I'm at a loss. I mean, I don't

534
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: even know why we have perjury laws if we're not

535
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: going to hold these people to account for what is

536
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: the most one of the most obvious cases of perjury

537
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: that anybody's ever seen. But like you said, it happens

538
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: every day, all day and twice on Sunday. So then

539
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: comes Richard Harris.

540
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the state witness, Richard Harris

541
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 2: let me context that there's no physical evidence connecting me

542
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: to the crime. So all they had was Caleb Bryant,

543
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 2: who we just talked about, and then what they had

544
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: left was Richard Harris, this neighbor guy who was into trouble,

545
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 2: who was looking to save his own soul. He testifies

546
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 2: that he is two thousand and one percent sure that

547
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 2: it was Ricky Kidd who he saw committing the crime

548
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: on that day. To help bolster his memory, I don't

549
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 2: know if they worked with him on this. He called

550
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 2: me the terminator. How do you know so much? Because

551
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 2: he walked like a terminator. I guess I don't know, robot.

552
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure, but I just think it was

553
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 2: designed to boaster his identification that he was accurate. The

554
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 2: problem was I didn't walk like no terminator. I didn't

555
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 2: have any walk like a terrainator. But they didn't say, ricky, kid,

556
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 2: you get up and you walk, can you demonstrate to

557
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 2: the jury? So on the surface, it sounds like he

558
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 2: gotta be right because he was able to distinguish how

559
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 2: this guy walks. It was designed to boaster a false testimony.

560
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 2: He gives me a beard. I'm twenty two years of

561
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 2: age at that time. I did not have a beerd

562
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 2: he put a beard on me. My lawyer tried to

563
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 2: impeach him there. She did a real terrible job doing that.

564
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 2: All photos had shown that I was clean faced, like

565
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 2: I couldn't have had a beard. I think they had

566
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 2: got a photo of me just weeks before the nd

567
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 2: But this guy came in and testified that he was

568
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 2: two thousand and one percent sure that I was the guy,

569
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 2: despite getting everything else wrong about the commission of the crime.

570
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 2: And listen to me, he didn't get one thing. Oh,

571
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 2: I can see how he got a couple of things wrong,

572
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: but he got a couple of things right. This state

573
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: witness Richard Harris, didn't get one thing right that all

574
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: other independent neighbors were saying about what happened before and

575
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 2: after the gunfire. But they found this guy credible.

576
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: He lied, and he had I mean, I'm not excusing

577
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: it by any means, but he had a hell of

578
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: a choice, right. He had the choice of either going

579
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:56,239
Speaker 1: back to jail, which they were threatened to throw him

580
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: back to jail on the parle violation, which he obviously

581
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: didn't want to do, or saying nothing, in which case

582
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: they would have put him back in jail, or implicating

583
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: the actual killers and he knew exactly who they were

584
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: and putting his own life in very real danger, or

585
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: pinning it on an innocent guy and walking free and

586
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: just having to live with his own conscience. And he

587
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: chose the easy way out, Ricky. This trial, unlike some

588
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: other Rowful convictions that we've covered, where they didn't even

589
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: bother or present halibi witnesses or anything like that, due

590
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: to either the fact that they may not have been

591
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: any because maybe the person was just home a sleep

592
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: at the time, or the fact that the attorney was

593
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: just incompetent or didn't care or whatever. But in your case,

594
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: you had credible alibi witnesses to refute the ridiculous false

595
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: narrative that mister Harris was putting forward. So tell us

596
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: a little about who testified in your defense.

597
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jason, we had my stepfather testify that he came

598
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 2: down early that morning and gave me a jumpstart. My

599
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 2: sister testified that she stayed at my house, that she

600
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: took my new core, that I came to her job

601
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 2: to pick up that new car. Two of her co

602
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 2: workers testified that I came to her job that day

603
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 2: as well, that they was the one who greeted me

604
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 2: and escorted me over to my sister to pick up

605
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 2: the keys. My daughter, Jasmine, her mother Kelly, she testified

606
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 2: that I came out to her house as well. And

607
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 2: then my girlfriend at the time, Monica Gray, testified to

608
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 2: the fullness of all of that because she was with

609
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 2: me all day, so she was the base of all

610
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 2: of those added testimonies of where I was throughout the

611
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 2: fullness of the day the gun permitted. I was at

612
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 2: the Jackson County Sheriff's Department applying for a legal handgun

613
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 2: at the time, but they brought in a sergeant in Buffalo.

614
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 2: He was a prosecutor's witness who did not handle the

615
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 2: screening for that that was not his job, and he

616
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 2: testified this, yeah, this could have been mailed in, faxed in,

617
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 2: could have been brought in by somebody else, and so

618
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 2: he cast serious doubt of the fact that I would

619
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 2: have been at the Sheriff's department, when in fact he

620
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 2: was wrong. It couldn't have been brought in by someone

621
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 2: else because they require ID, it couldn't have been faxed

622
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 2: in because it would have had a fact number at

623
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 2: the top, and it couldn't have been mailed in because

624
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 2: the individual wouldn't know the accuracy of the mailing system

625
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 2: to be able to get that done. We had to

626
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 2: later find Susan Jordan, the lady who actually did process

627
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 2: that application, and she later testified in my appeals that

628
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 2: it indeed happened the way Ricky's legal team said it happened.

629
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 2: But back to the trial, this is the evidence that

630
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 2: we was able to put on, and unfortunately the jury

631
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 2: decided to side with the state.

632
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: And with the one guy who was far from credible

633
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: against all these people who were credible and whose stories

634
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: all matched up together. But okay, so now comes a

635
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: moment where the jury goes out. How long would they

636
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: out for?

637
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 2: I think an hour? Forty an hour?

638
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: Yeah? Wow, okay, so they come back after forty five

639
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 1: minutes to an hour. Did you still hold out any hope?

640
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 2: I thought that I was going home still. I just

641
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,799
Speaker 2: did not believe, even through all what I was saying,

642
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 2: I did not believe that innocent people go to prison.

643
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 2: The judge told them to all rise. The verdict was

644
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 2: read that it was guilty. It was guilty on all counts.

645
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 2: Just imagine, because many of us have not lived through

646
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 2: an earthquake. I have not, at least not the type

647
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 2: of earthquake I'm talking about that's underneath the earth. But

648
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 2: it felt like an earthquake. It just I felt my

649
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 2: knees buckling, I felt my body shaken, and everything slowed down.

650
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: And when they started seeing life without the possibility, tears

651
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,399
Speaker 2: were so intense streaming down my face that I could

652
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 2: not see. I fell to my seat and I sobbed.

653
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,240
Speaker 2: I sobbed so hard, it was so loud, my nose

654
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: was rhyming. Every part of my fiber in my being

655
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 2: was devastated. So off the prison I went March twenty fourth,

656
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, Potosi Correctional Center, Maximum level five prison

657
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 2: here in the state of Missouri, where they housed death

658
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 2: row inmates, and I remember getting off that bus, shackled

659
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 2: to about half a dozen to a dozen of other individuals,

660
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,800
Speaker 2: and the officer greeting us with a salutation of gentlemen,

661
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 2: welcome to hell. In hell, it was the cold stairs,

662
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 2: the whistles, the stale environment. I did not know how

663
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,240
Speaker 2: I was gonna survive. I did not have a friend,

664
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 2: an uncle, a brother. I did not know a person

665
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 2: in prison. And so these fifteen hundred men, most of

666
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 2: them on the yard, it was recreation. I'm thinking, uh,

667
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,800
Speaker 2: I'm in trouble. So I had to think real fast.

668
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 2: I know, I didn't have the muscle that these other

669
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 2: individuals have. I didn't have the friends and the click

670
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 2: that these other individuals would run with. I just had myself.

671
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 2: One of the first things I did was not play tough,

672
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,399
Speaker 2: as to not to invite trouble and to really use

673
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 2: my head. When I saw lures and traps of you know,

674
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 2: come over here, meet me over here, I would decide

675
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 2: not to. I did meet a couple of friends early on.

676
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 2: Our associates who seem to be good guys who made

677
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 2: bad decisions, saw the goodness in me and pulled me

678
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 2: up earlier and gave me the five or six seven

679
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,399
Speaker 2: pointers to avoid to make sure that I can have

680
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 2: a successful bit that I could do this time with

681
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 2: as little amount of trouble as possible. I saw violence,

682
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 2: I saw assaults, I saw stabbings. I mean, you name it,

683
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: I saw it, and I just would use my head.

684
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 2: I would often tell myself intelligence over emotion, so I

685
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 2: would try not to respond emotionally, even when I was

686
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 2: being punked. A couple of times, which they were call

687
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 2: punk punked out of my seat, told to get up

688
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 2: from having breakfast because this was they table, but they

689
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 2: were sitting at the table over the day before. They

690
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 2: said well, we want this table today, and so you're

691
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 2: forced to either confront that or get up and stand

692
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: by the island where you get your trade from and

693
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 2: eat at the island. I did that for a couple

694
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 2: of days until a couple again be good friends came

695
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 2: or associated came and said no, you could sit at

696
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 2: our table. Overall through the twenty three years, it was

697
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 2: my faith that I survived off of. It was the

698
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 2: idea that I was innocent that I survived of. It

699
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 2: was the idea my family who I left behind, my kids,

700
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: who I left behind. I wanted to commit suicide. I

701
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 2: contemplated suicide on many occasions, but what halted those actions

702
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: and behavior was seeing my family on the outside, still

703
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 2: needing me and wanting me to be there. There's less

704
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 2: than a one percent chance ever been successful on appeal

705
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 2: when you're fighting wrong for convictions and people will tell

706
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,280
Speaker 2: me to give it up, Ricky, it's a one percent chance,

707
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 2: And I say, yeah, but you didn't say there was

708
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 2: a no percent chance. So I did not want to

709
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 2: understand as much how the ninety nine percent loss. I

710
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 2: wanted to understand more of how did the one percent win?

711
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 2: And that's what I would be guided by for those

712
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 2: twenty three years until we was successful in becoming among

713
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:26,280
Speaker 2: that one percent and winning.

714
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: Wow, there was absolutely no you had a much better

715
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: than one percent chance of being killed while you're in prison. Yeah,

716
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 1: it's a miracle that you never did decide to take

717
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: your own life, as so many people do in those facilities,

718
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted or even people who were not wrong, convicted,

719
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: but you stood strong. Somehow or other, you found the

720
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: will to live, to learn, and to fight, and fight

721
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: you did, and fortunately you were able to get the

722
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: attention of the people that could help you. And of

723
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: course now I'm talking about the Midwest Innocence Project. Oh yeah,

724
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 1: because Tricia Bushnell. I mean google this, google her because

725
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: if you, I think, if you look up, doesn't fuck around,

726
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 1: you know, hers might be one of the first names

727
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: that comes up. I mean, when she gets involved, this

728
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: is when things can really turn. And I encourage people

729
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: to join me in supporting the Midwest Innocence Project. They

730
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: are one of the oh yeah, best in the country,

731
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: best in class. Will put a link in the bio

732
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: of the episode where people want to donate. So Tricia

733
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: bush down racial Western.

734
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm a professor. Sean O'Brien, who was also

735
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 2: a great part of the legal team, often led the

736
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 2: legal team.

737
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: Like the freaking Avengers came in right, and yeah it's

738
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: a miracle that they did.

739
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 2: I lost eleven times before I won my very last appeal.

740
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 2: Appeal after appeal after appeal, everyone is good as the

741
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 2: next during the appeals process that whole twenty three years,

742
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 2: my lawyer stayed on this guy, Richard Harris, and they

743
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 2: was successful in being able to get this witness to

744
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 2: expose his lies. I mean, riddle, riddle, every time they

745
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,800
Speaker 2: talked to him it was something different, and they said, Ricky,

746
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 2: we got him. He comes to court and any blind

747
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 2: jurists a judge will be able to see that this

748
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 2: guy is not credible and that the conviction should not stand,

749
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 2: particularly since your conviction was solely based on this loan

750
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:33,760
Speaker 2: eyewitness testimony. And so my final appeal, that twelfth appeal,

751
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 2: in April of twenty nineteen, this Richard Harris came to court.

752
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 1: So you're at this hearing, Richard Harris is getting ready

753
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: to be torn to shreds by your well dream team,

754
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: and then something totally unexpected happens.

755
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 2: We was prepared to just show all the inocuracies and

756
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:55,399
Speaker 2: straight out lives. We had a chart fifteen inconsistencies, eight

757
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 2: straight out lies, and we had the chart to match

758
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 2: on this page and this deposition, and he was toast.

759
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 2: But before we can really even get to that, he

760
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 2: had a conscious and he came clean. He testified that

761
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 2: he lied and that it wasn't me. He testified that

762
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 2: he knew it was the good Speeds and that he

763
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 2: picked me because there was no harm. But if he

764
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 2: identified the good Speeds, they would come after him and

765
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 2: get him. So he was willing to lie. When the

766
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 2: state attorneys general tried to get up and rehabilitate his testimony,

767
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 2: Richard Hare, it was in the movies.

768
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: It's like a movie.

769
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 2: He snapped, I'm sick of this. You're not scaring me.

770
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 2: I'm not scared of you anymore. And he stood up

771
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 2: to Hi, I'm doing the right thing today and I'm

772
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:45,280
Speaker 2: adding some words in, but it was it was a flare.

773
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 2: Everybody in the courtroom was looking, including the judge. He's

774
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 2: innocent and y'all should let him go now. I'm done

775
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,879
Speaker 2: with this. And he began to break down and cry

776
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: and he looked over at me and he said, I'm sorry,

777
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm so sor and he got up and

778
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 2: rate didn't even get dismissed from the witness box, and

779
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:06,400
Speaker 2: he just got up and ran out of the courtroom.

780
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:10,359
Speaker 1: So wow, that is super dramatic. And by the way,

781
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: it's hard not to think about the fact that this

782
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: guy who led a hard life, I'm sure, and you know,

783
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: had to stay alive that almost quarter century man or

784
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: he finally came clean. If he would have died or man,

785
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: you know, or something else happened to him, or become

786
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: incapacitated somehow, or moved away where they couldn't find him,

787
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 1: then you would be still in prison now and for

788
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. It all hung on that

789
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: little thread, right, Yeah, it.

790
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 2: Is a very strong likelihood. Yeah, yeah, And I was

791
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,919
Speaker 2: always nervous about that. Fortunate for me in our legal team,

792
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 2: that wasn't the case and we didn't have to suffer

793
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 2: such a devastating blow.

794
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: And in the end, Judge Atkins ruled that the evidence,

795
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: and this is a direct quote from the judge, established

796
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 1: his innocence from multiple as end quote, Mike Drop. The evidence,

797
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: he said, showed that you were not involved, that your

798
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: alibi was truthful, and that the inescapable conclusion was exactly

799
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: what was known from the very beginning, which was that

800
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: Briant and Bridges were murdered by the good Speeds and

801
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: by Merrill.

802
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 2: When I got the legal call, there was an indication

803
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 2: that the judge was going to rule in our favor

804
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 2: just by the questions he was asking both parties as

805
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,399
Speaker 2: he was preparing his ruling. The emails he would send them.

806
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 2: He has to send it to both sides, and so

807
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 2: we was reading the tea leaves. If he was going

808
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 2: to say no, he wouldn't be asking us for this.

809
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 2: If he was going to say yes, he would be

810
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,279
Speaker 2: asking us for this. He's asking us for this. But

811
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 2: we never fully knew, and so I was working out

812
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 2: that day. On August fourteenth, twenty nineteen, they said, you

813
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 2: have a legal call. I called my lawyers and Trisha

814
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 2: and Rachel was on that phone. When two or more

815
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 2: lawyers on the phone, it usually has been bad news.

816
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 2: Only talked to one when it's just an update or

817
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,640
Speaker 2: some brief. So I did not know, oh, what's going here.

818
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 2: And so they was like, hey, buddy, how's it going.

819
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 2: And sometimes they'll do that too to prepare me for

820
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 2: the shocking news or the bad news. And I said,

821
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 2: I'm doing five. I said, tell me what's going on?

822
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 2: They said, well, hold on, let me get the rest

823
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 2: of the lawyers on the phone as well. That made

824
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 2: me kind of feel up beat. I said, the rest

825
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 2: of the lawyers. She said, yeah, we're waiting for Cindy,

826
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 2: Cindy Dodge and Sean O'Brien. I said, oh, this is

827
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: good news in my mind. And so they all got

828
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,760
Speaker 2: on the call, all four of them, me and nobody

829
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 2: wanted to lead, so I just I said, hey, somebody

830
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 2: tell me please, what's going on? And Sean O'Brien said, Ricky,

831
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,399
Speaker 2: you know what's going on? And Cindy Dodge broke out,

832
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 2: You're free. You're a free the judge has ordered you

833
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,800
Speaker 2: to go free. You're free, Ricky, and I just started crying.

834
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 2: I just started crying the whole twenty minutes. They was

835
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 2: telling me everything that was gonna happen next and I

836
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,800
Speaker 2: didn't hear none of it. I didn't hear that of it.

837
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 2: I was crying so hard. But it was a whole

838
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 2: different type of crime, Jason, and that was the highlight.

839
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 2: That was the highlight of my twenty three year roll

840
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 2: for conviction, knowing that that was the day that I

841
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 2: was about to be Freekin, that's.

842
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: A beautiful, beautiful thing. What a beautiful description of an

843
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: incredible moment, and what a profound experience for those lawyers

844
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: and for lawyers who are listening. We had a lot

845
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: of lawyers that listen to this show. Shout out to

846
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: all of you and if any of you were thinking, hey,

847
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about taking a pro bono case, you

848
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 1: know what, let's go because there's a lot of rickey

849
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 1: kids out there, and I'm sure you know where some

850
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: of them are too ricky. And if people want to

851
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: if people want to reach out to you, how can

852
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: they contact you? If they do want to get in

853
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: touch with you for it any number of reasons. You

854
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: have an email or something else or Instagram I do.

855
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 2: I have a website Resiliencemode dot com, where they can

856
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 2: find me there. I also have a link tree with

857
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,439
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff that they can get a quick

858
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 2: glance at who I am, what I've been up to.

859
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: We'll put a link into the episode bio of if.

860
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 2: I could just say I actually went from being a

861
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 2: client of the Mid Innocence Project, I'm now in a

862
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: colleague of Chrisia bush Nil. I love Tricia bush Neil.

863
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 2: I am our community engagement manager. I've also been elevated

864
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 2: through my work to serve on the Innocence Network Executive Board.

865
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:18,839
Speaker 2: I'm on the District Attorney's Advisory Board here in Kansas City,

866
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 2: and I just was recently assigned to the X Hoonery

867
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 2: Policy Council up in New York with Rebecca Brown and

868
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:30,320
Speaker 2: Olivia Bournes, and so I went from being underneath the

869
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 2: problem to trying to be a part of the solution.

870
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 2: I speak all across the country sharing my cautionary tale.

871
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 2: I just started training prosecutors last year, last October. We're

872
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 2: planning to take that and expand it even more where

873
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 2: other prosecutors could learn the pitfalls of wrongful convictions and

874
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 2: have some proximity to innocence. A lot of prosecutors do

875
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 2: not have proximity to innocence, and we want them to

876
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,479
Speaker 2: have that experience with the idea that perhaps it would

877
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 2: influence or change their opinion as to how they do

878
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 2: business when it comes to these cases that come before them.

879
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 2: So I'm happy to be home, and I love collaborating,

880
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 2: and you could just reach out and say hey, let's

881
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 2: collab I'm always open to that. So I'm very passionate

882
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 2: about this work.

883
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: Incredible. Well, I know I speak for everyone in our

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00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 1: audience and our staff on our team here, Wrong for

885
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcasts and the whole Lava for Good team and

886
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 1: everyone in the instance move. Just wishing you every blessing

887
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:34,319
Speaker 1: in the world. It is inspiring to see you doing

888
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: what you're doing. So now we turn to our closing

889
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: of the show, which is appropriately called closing Arguments. This

890
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: is the part where I turned my microphone off, kick

891
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: back in my chair with my headphones on, turn the

892
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: volume up a little bit, and just listen to anything

893
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: else you want to share with me and our incredible audience.

894
00:49:55,960 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that, Jason, First and foremost special shout

895
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 2: out to the entire Like you said, the entire Roleful

896
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 2: Conviction podcast team who's doing this work raising awareness about

897
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions is so important. We need this podcast. The

898
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 2: world need this podcast one hundred percent because people are

899
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,160
Speaker 2: not aware enough about the issues surrounding roleful convictions. That

900
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 2: has become my life work. Since I came home. I

901
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 2: hit the ground running, raising my voice for those who

902
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 2: is voiceless to raise awareness about wrongful convictions. I've testified

903
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 2: before policymakers twice again, participating in various councils, committees, executive boards,

904
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 2: social media. I quickly learned how to use social media

905
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 2: and began to create content that was designed to raise awareness.

906
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 2: I've been to twenty fourth state since I've been home.

907
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 2: In three years. As we travel across the country, what

908
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: I'm constantly learning is people are not aware of wrongful convictions.

909
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 2: They have not heard enough about the issue. Anytime we

910
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 2: get to get in this space actually educate ourselves about

911
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 2: the different type of issues surrounding wrongful convictions, the different

912
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 2: type of cases surrounding wrongful convictions, and any time we

913
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 2: can leave, hopefully today the audience will leave feel un inspired,

914
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 2: moved and motivated to do more, to get more involved

915
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:18,320
Speaker 2: than we're doing our job, and we get to do

916
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 2: it together. So that's what I would say to the audience,

917
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 2: and once again, thank you Jason Connor the rest of

918
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 2: the team for having this platform that we can come

919
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 2: on here and then we get to educate and inspire together.

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00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to

921
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis.

922
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 1: With research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production

923
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.

924
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,

925
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at

926
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good on

927
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:04,799
Speaker 1: all three platforms. You can also follow me on both

928
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason flam Ravel Conviction is

929
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with

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00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one